Finis Vitae Sed Non Amoris
by Taaroko
Summary: What was Buffy up to while she was in Heaven? She knew the people she loved were safe, but what else could she see if time wasn't a factor? Buffy/Angel focus, major tissue warning. Concludes with the post-"Flooded"/"Carpe Noctem" offscreen meeting.
1. In Memoriam

Okay, I kinda hate my muse right now. Instead of helping me write the next chapter of "Worlds Apart" or the next episode of "Season 9" or even the next chapter of "The Slayer and His Vampire", she gave me this. Which I adore in spite of the annoying lack of help with the other three stories. But at least it means the muse and I have both recovered from the crazy stress induced by potential tuition evilness this past week, as that has now been resolved and all is right with the world. Anyway! This is another one in the same sort of vein as "Destiny Thwarted By a Wish", since it focuses on someone dearly (though only temporarily) departed. Initially set in between seasons five and six. Enjoy! Also, I thought the whole "nothing has form" thing about the way Buffy described Heaven was kinda lame, but I sort of stuck with it.

Disclaimer: Nope. Still not mine.

By the way, this chapter is supposed to be called "In Memoriam", since I'm really having fun with the whole Latin thing at the moment, but you won't be able to see the chapter title until I post chapter two, so I thought I'd clear that up now.

* * *

Heaven was beyond anything Buffy could have imagined. Not that she'd really ever given it much thought, strangely enough. Everywhere she went, she felt the kind of comfortable warmth that only seems to exist in front of merrily lit hearths on Earth, and the beauty of the place was beyond description. There was no threat of danger here, no press of urgent responsibility. That was over. She was safe. She was finished.

She had been welcomed back into her mother's arms. She had seen the grandparents who had passed away before she could remember, and the ones she had known, and cried about for days when they were gone. She had seen her cousin, Celia, who was amazed and delighted to see her so grown up.

It was a long time—years perhaps—that she wanted nothing more than to remain here with these people she loved and who loved her. With them, she was content; at peace; home. But eventually, the love she felt for others who were yet among the living tugged too insistently at her soul to be ignored. She needed to know that they were well.

This desire was no secret, though she had expressed it aloud to no one. Strange how speech didn't seem to matter as much here. She didn't know what she needed to do, but a young girl—no older than Dawn, it seemed—was waiting to show her. There was something vaguely familiar about this girl, but Buffy would have time to figure that out later. For now, she needed to see the ones she had left behind.

The girl took her hand, and then they were there. In Sunnydale. The hearth-like warmth had come with them, surrounding them like an invisible blanket—or perhaps it was coming from them? Either way, it was a great comfort. Buffy didn't want to be reminded of how cold and harsh it could be there.

The scene she saw surprised her. Much more time had passed than this, surely. She was looking at her own funeral. There were no other graves in sight; it seemed that they were burying her in a forest clearing, rather than a cemetery. She let out a merry laugh when she read the inscription on her headstone. The strangely familiar girl who had brought her there smiled.

Six mourners remained. With more difficulty than she had anticipated, Buffy moved her gaze to each of them in turn. The tears on the faces of everyone she cared about were the closest thing to physical pain she had experienced since jumping into that portal. She wanted to tell them that she was right beside them, but knew they would not hear.

Dawn shook with silent sobs. Giles had his arms around her in place of the father who should have been present but was not, but he seemed seconds away from breaking down as well. Willow and Tara were on their left, crying and holding each other. Xander and Anya stood to their right, Xander's arm around Anya's shoulders. Anya was staring at the mound of earth so hard that it seemed she thought she could force an explanation out of it. The corners of Xander's mouth were twitching, as though he was remembering the good times and laughs against his will.

Buffy wanted to know if she could do anything to comfort them. A touch on the shoulder? The girl beside her nodded. Buffy took her time, moving slowly among them. When she reached Xander, she saw his resolve break for a second, and a genuine smile broke out across his face. It was gone as soon as her fingers left his shoulder. Dawn and Giles also seemed less anguished when she was near them, and she lingered at their side for several long minutes. Like the other three, Willow and Anya appeared to be slightly less miserable while still oblivious, but Tara drew a sharp intake of breath that was mistaken by the others as a sob, and her eyes passed exactly over the place where Buffy stood. She gave a watery smile, then twined her fingers more securely through Willow's and returned her gaze to the grave.

Though they could not see her and only one of them seemed to know she was there, she could not bear to leave yet, so she stayed. The sunny day passed as if in a trance, and eventually they had all gone except Dawn, who declined all of their offers for a ride home—a home that was empty now, apart from her. That thought saddened Buffy more than anything else had that day, but she knew the others would not leave her sister alone in that place.

The sun set, and Dawn was still there, as she herself had still been there long after their mother's funeral. It was strange to remember how sad she had been, how afraid and alone she had felt, now that she had been reunited with her and knew that all was well. And then, just like that day, the final mourner was joined by another who could not have come sooner, and the almost-pain in Buffy's heart intensified tenfold to be so near and yet so far from these two dearest and most grief-stricken loved ones.

After a moment, Dawn looked around and saw Angel. Many different emotions flickered across her face, and then she flung herself towards him. For a very long time, they hugged tightly, holding each other up as they shook with grief and tears. Buffy looked at the girl still standing at her side, and was slightly surprised to see the same sadness she herself felt on her face as she looked at Angel. It struck her then how very similar this girl's features were to his, and how their eyes and hair were precisely the same color. More than ever, she wondered who this girl was. It was easier to think about that than the man she almost gave her life for and the sister for whom she had succeeded in doing so.

After the hug ended, they still clung to each other, and eventually they broke the silence with halting conversation. Dawn spoke words of gratitude that he had come and he attempted to offer words of comfort, but mostly they just held onto each other without speaking, until night truly fell, and Dawn went home. Buffy took her place at Angel's side and willed with her entire being that he would know she was there. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him on the cheek, thanking him for what he did for Dawn. She was tempted to think about what her final two years might have been like if he had remained in her life, but she forced that thought away. She had wondered that too many times already. It was always both painful and fruitless, and often caused her to think ill of him, which was the last thing she wanted now.

Though that particular train of thought had been successfully derailed, she could not stop herself from boarding another; one almost as full of wistfulness and regret as the first. She had only known him for four and a half years, including the two they had been apart. How well had she really gotten to know him? Everything had always been about her. It suddenly occurred to her how many opportunities to learn more about him she had wasted. She had only been on Earth two decades, so why was it that her life was the one that had always seemed to come up in their conversations? Her worries about school, her goals for the future, her grief for her mother. And when it was about him, it was only about what he was; the things he had done without a soul—how none of that mattered to her no matter how much he thought it should. But what about the rest of it? Why hadn't she asked him?

The girl who had guided her there was watching her now, rather than Angel, who she so resembled, and she seemed, as before, to know exactly what she was thinking. Buffy was struck by a sudden idea. Was the present the only thing she could see here? Did time really matter anymore? The girl smiled and held out her hand. Buffy looked at Angel, then back at the girl, and placed a hand in hers. The cemetery vanished around them.

†

A light, warm breeze ruffled the leaves on the trees around Angel. His forehead creased slightly in confusion, and he touched his left cheek, which somehow didn't feel as cold as the rest of him.

* * *

I nearly cried writing all of that grieving there. It seemed fitting to me that Tara would be the one to sense Buffy's presence, because she's amazingly empathetic and in tune with things like that, which is one of the things I love best about her character. But after I wrote that, I wondered what that would mean about Tara's participation in the resurrection spell, but then I figured that after a summer of seeing Dawn hurting so much from the loss of her sister, and being the empathetic person she is, she'd still want to bring Buffy back for that reason, if she could. And I totally got the idea for Dawn and Angel's shared grief from one of **Kairos Impending**'s most recent fics, but go read everything else she's written while you're at it, since it's all awesome. Anyway, the first one to guess who the girl accompanying Buffy is gets an imaginary cookie, as does the first person to guess where they've gone. Also, any guesses on what the story title translates to in English?


	2. Dum Vita Est, Spes Est

Between crisp shafts of golden sunlight, a boy no older than twelve sat outside a heavy wooden door, his back to the wall, his knees drawn up to his chin. He had wavy, chin-length brown hair, eyes of an even darker brown, and he wore a blue vest over a slightly rumpled white linen shirt, grass-stained knee-length breeches, stockings, and buckled shoes.

"Angel," said Buffy in awe. He was so small and innocent.

"Liam, now," the previously silent girl corrected her with a smile.

_Liam…._

From within the house came a terrible scream of pain, and Liam screwed up his face and squeezed his eyes shut, curling into an even tighter ball where he sat. Eyes still closed, he began to mumble something under his breath, but he spoke too quietly for Buffy to hear from where she stood beside the stone well. Another scream sounded from within the house, and tears began to streak his face.

"What is this?" asked Buffy, frowning.

"The day I was born," the girl replied, and Buffy was finally able to make out what the boy was saying.

_"Please, Lord, not this one too."_ Over and over again. _"Please, Lord, not this one too…."_

"Our mother gave birth to eight children," the girl explained. "Liam and I were the only ones who lived longer than a month. The baby before me, a boy, died only moments after birth. The midwife said it was a miracle Mother survived."

The calmly spoken words seemed to bore a hole through Buffy's incorporeal chest. She only had one sibling, and nothing had ever scared her more when she was alive than the thought of something happening to her. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Angel, as a little boy, to lose sibling after sibling so soon after they were born.

The door swung open, and a man whose face was tight and drawn with anxiety emerged, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He was dressed the same way as Liam, except that his shirt wasn't rumpled and there were no grass stains on his breeches. Though the gray wig he wore made it impossible to distinguish the color of his actual hair, from the shape of his forehead and nose, Buffy thought that this must be Angel and the girl's father.

It was a moment before the man noticed his son sitting beside the door. "Liam, me boy, why aren't ye with yer tutor?" he scolded, though his tone was gentle.

"The baby," said Liam simply. His voice was muffled, as he had hidden his face in his arms.

"Well, lad, I suppose that's the best excuse fer missin' lessons ye've given me yet," said his father with a strained chuckle.

"Is Mother goin' to be all right?" asked Liam.

"Aye," he said, though it sounded to Buffy as though he was trying to convince himself as much as his son.

"Will this baby die like the others?" asked Liam.

"I—I don't know, Liam," said his father heavily. It seemed that he was incapable of forced optimism on this point.

The scene changed. They were inside the house now, and Liam and his father stood on either side of an exhausted-looking woman—obviously the mother. She held a small bundle in her arms, from which a tuft of chocolaty brown hair was visible above a tiny, pinkish face.

"Well, she's 'ealthy as a horse, s'far as I can tell," declared the midwife, a plump woman with straggly, copper-colored hair. They thanked her, and she gathered her equipment, curtseyed, and bustled from the room.

"Look, Kathy," said the woman sleepily, "that there's Liam, yer big brother."

Liam reached forward in awe to touch the infant's face. Before he could do so, a chubby little hand emerged from the blankets and gripped his finger. The Kathy standing beside Buffy smiled fondly.

The scene changed again. Now Buffy watched as a Liam in his late teens, whose hair was now long enough to pull back in a ponytail, helped a six-year-old Kathy onto the back of a horse, before mounting a second steed with practiced ease.

"Liam, where are we goin'?" asked Kathy suspiciously. "Da'll be cross with ye fer takin' the 'orses again."

"Don't worry about 'im," he said with a mischievous grin. "There's somethin' I want to show ye." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "It'll be our secret."

The sternness on her face evaporating in an instant, Kathy sat up straighter on her horse's back, her eyes becoming wide and eager.

Together, the pair of them rode across the hilly green landscape for about half an hour, at which point they arrived at the coast, where they dismounted. Liam chased Kathy through the surf, and though she shrieked with gleeful laughter every time he let her outstrip him, he always took care to ensure that she never ventured far enough into the water that more than her feet got wet.

After Kathy's energy ran out, they sat together on the beach, drawing pictures in the sand, and Liam told her how when he was older, he was going to cross that endless ocean they saw before them, and explore the lands beyond it. Kathy hung on her brother's every word, gazing at him with admiration. Then, worried, she asked if he would be gone forever, but he laughed and promised that he'd come back to visit her as often as he could.

Eventually, when the sun was close to setting, they got back on their horses and began to make their way home. Not two seconds after their destination came into view, a small flock of quail exploded up out of nowhere in front of Kathy's horse, causing him to spook badly and rear up on his hind legs. Kathy screamed as she was thrown from his back.

"KATHY!" bellowed Liam, leaping down from his own horse and sprinting to the place where she had fallen. "No, no, no," he moaned, pulling her small, feebly stirring form into his arms. "I promised I'd look after ye."

The horses and the surroundings disappeared, and their replacement, the interior of the house, came with an explosion of noise.

"What were ye doin', takin' Kathy out on the 'orses when ye were supposed to be learnin' yer family trade!?" Liam's father raged at the top of his voice, an angry vein pulsing in his temple. "She could 'ave been killed! If ye don't learn some responsibility soon, ye'll ne'er amount to anythin'!"

Liam's expression was one of utter anguish. It was clear that no matter how little interest he had in learning to be a silk and linen merchant, the last thing he had wanted was for his baby sister to be hurt.

Buffy smiled sadly. "He loved you very much, didn't he?"

"Whatever else 'e may 'ave been, I couldn't 'ave asked fer a better brother," said the Kathy at her side.

And Buffy understood then that she was being shown the best of him; the qualities that would endure throughout the centuries to become part of the man she knew and loved.

* * *

What? You thought Kathy was going to show Buffy scenes of Liam's drunken debauchery? Pfft. Not likely. Also, holy *crap*, this story is so sad. I don't know what I thought I was getting into when the idea for it struck me. Not that it'll be enough to stop me writing more, of course. Anyway, that well Buffy was standing by in the first scene is totally canonical, oh yes.


	3. Stipendium Peccati Mors Est

Rather out of nowhere, this week became completely insane, and not all of the insanity was of the good, fun variety. Dealing with my real life issues made it very difficult to get into a writing-conducive mindset, but this chapter finally broke through, and I'm very happy with it. Also, this is definitely my favorite chapter title so far for this story. Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

The next scene was so similar to the one before it that it took a moment for Buffy to realize that they weren't one and the same. She and the spectral Kathy at her side were still in the same room, where Liam was once again being yelled at by his father—but the wrinkles were etched a little more deeply into latter man's face now, and Liam was slightly taller and more broad-shouldered than before. A second later, Buffy noticed that the door was ajar, and the Kathy of the day, now about ten years old, stood on the other side of it, peering into the room through the gap between door and wall.

From the clear morning sunlight streaming in through the windows and the thoroughly rumpled look of Liam's hair and clothing, Buffy guessed that he had recently been caught in the act of sneaking back into the house after spending the night elsewhere—an inference that was almost instantly confirmed by the irate man in front of her.

"…Neglectin' yer responsibilities fer another night o' drinkin' an' whorin'!" he shouted, red-faced and furious. "Twice already this week! I won't 'ave ye bringin' shame upon this 'ouse, boy!"

"Oh, this 'ouse'll come by its shame easily enough without my 'elp," Liam shot back, "all thanks to that precious trade o' yours. Well, fergive me if I'm not interested in wastin' my efforts on a lost cause, Father."

"What is this?" demanded the older man hotly.

Liam snorted. "Ye spend 'alf yer days shovin' books an' records under me nose, tryin' to pass yer business on to me, an' ye think I 'aven't seen it? Times are changin', and yer profits aren't what they once were. It won't be long before ye're ruined, an' then this 'ouse, whose honor ye keep insistin' I preserve, will be nothin', so I don't see 'ow it matters what I do in the meantime, or what use it'd be fer me to take yer place."

"Oh, is that it? Well, I'm not so willin' to give up as you. It's yer indolence and debauchery that'll be the death o' this business, boy, not the times, an' it'll be on yer head, not mine."

"Believe what ye will, Father," said Liam disdainfully, "but I'll 'ave no part in it." And before his father could call him back, he stormed from the room. Kathy barely had time to scramble out of the doorway before Liam went thundering through it.

She watched him go with tears in her eyes, then turned to look imploringly at the man in the room. The moment his gaze fell on her, all of the anger melted from his features, leaving him looking weary and much older than he was. Kathy's expression was hesitant, questioning. Eventually, her father gave her a tired smile. "Heard all that, did ye?" He sighed. "Go after 'im if ye wish, dear child," he said gruffly, waving a hand in her direction and rubbing the other across the back of his neck. "Ye're the only one 'e'll 'ear sense from." Kathy gave him a grateful smile, then turned and ran after her brother.

The surroundings dissolved again and resolved themselves seconds later into a small room furnished with a bed, a wardrobe, and a writing desk. Naked from the waist up, Liam lay facedown on the bed, arms crossed under his head, staring glumly towards the center of the room. Buffy let out an involuntary cry of sympathy; his face was a mess of shallow cuts and bruises, and his knuckles were badly scraped and bruised.

It looked like he'd been in a violent fistfight, during the course of which he'd been brutally shoved against the sharp corner of a table. That explanation, at least, would account for the existence of yet another bruise, worse by far than the ones on his face, which covered a large portion of the lower left area of his back—the right shoulder blade of which, Buffy noticed instantly, was void of the intricate gryphon tattoo she had been accustomed to seeing there. He was also slightly thinner than Angel as she had known him, but his face was so swollen and discolored in places that she couldn't be sure of his age. As he wasn't alone in the room, however, that mystery was easily solved. Kathy was once again present, and Buffy could easily place her at eleven or twelve years old, which made Liam twenty-four.

"Why must ye keep doin' this, Liam?" Kathy asked sadly as she gingerly applied a poultice to the ugly bruise on his back. "Ye know it upsets Father, and I hate seein' ye this way. I'm the one who always 'as to clean ye up after ye come 'ome bruised and bloody from all yer infernal brawlin'. I'll keep doin' it forever if I 'ave to, but I _hate_ it, Liam!"

"It's not fer Father to decide my life," he said. The words came out with almost petulant stubbornness. He had obviously said them many times before.

"So ye've decided to spend it in taverns instead?" asked Kathy. She sounded hurt and confused, and perhaps even a little angry. "Fergive me if I don't understand why ye'd prefer that to followin' in 'is footsteps."

"My life'll be no better spent peddlin' linens and silks than it'd be in and out o' taverns. It's a dyin' trade, but Father refuses to see that," he said, trying to scowl but wincing instead. "I am not so blind as he."

"Per'aps," she conceded reluctantly. "But what about yer dream? I thought ye wanted to see the world. Ye won't find it in a tavern, Liam." With slightly more force than was necessary, she tugged one of his hands toward her so that she could clean his knuckles with a wet cloth.

"To see the world," Liam repeated. Buffy could hear the bitterness in his voice. "A child's foolish dream."

"Those are Father's words," said Kathy sharply. "Not yours. The only fool I see is the man who's throwin' 'is dreams away to spend 'is life in pubs. Ye're choosin' a life o' sin, and no good will come of it!"

Liam chuckled. "Sweet, sweet Kathy. Ye'll make some lucky man a fine wife one day. That much is certain."

Kathy blushed and a shy smile softened her features for a second, but she sobered quickly and her expression became very grave. "An' what of you? What lucky woman'll 'ave ye fer a fine 'usband?"

Liam didn't answer, and Kathy finished cleaning his wounds without breaking the silence.

Buffy felt an uncomfortable tightness in her throat as she watched. She would have given anything to have been that lucky woman. More foolish dreams.

* * *

Okay, lots of fun historical facts behind this one. Around the time of Liam's birth, the cotton industry took off in England. As a consequence, silk and linen trade was on the decline all through Liam's life, which he could hardly have failed to notice. Also, Galway is located in what was then one of the poorest regions of Ireland, and was a predominantly Catholic city, so Liam's family was _probably _Catholic. By then, the Irish Penal Codes (a series of anti-Catholic laws) were in effect, which would have meant that Liam's father wouldn't have been able, as a Catholic, to prosper in business, as the most advantageous business contracts would have gone to Protestants instead. This explains a lot, as far as Liam's behavior and attitude are concerned.


	4. Dum Spiro, Spero

In watching scenes of Angel's beginnings, Buffy had seen both how very far he had come and how, in some of the most important ways, he was still the same as he ever was. These were things she could have learned no other way than firsthand, for she knew that Angel, who was always so determined to see only the worst of himself, would not have recognized anything good in his errant youth.

Buffy, however, had seen a bright young man with an enormous capacity for love and kindness, but who was too discouraged by the void between his own dreams and what was expected of him to realize his potential. The Angel she knew was the same. That capacity for love was what enabled him to feel remorse and guilt almost to the point of insanity for a hundred and fifty years of terrible acts he had not committed. It was what had made it possible for him to open his heart to her when he saw her, even after so much despair that he could easily have been past feeling by then. It was the reason he had been able to recover his sentience and sanity after his long sojourn in Hell. It was why he had gone to L.A., leaving her free to find the kind of long-term joy he thought he couldn't offer her.

Well. So much for that last one.

No. She'd already decided not to dwell on that, hadn't she? And anyway, there were more pressing matters at hand. She was sure she knew what the next stop on her guided tour down Angel's memory lane would be, and she was equally sure that she didn't want to see it. She remembered Angel's words to her years ago, the night after she found out what he was and was trying so desperately to hate him in spite of a heart that refused to cooperate.

_"I invited you into my home and then you_ attacked _my family!"_

_"Why not? I killed mine."_

The devout, stubborn, and well-meaning father who had struggled so hard to maintain his declining livelihood for his family's sake while despairing that he had apparently failed to instill the same values in his only son. The quiet, kind, and patient mother who stood by her husband through the hardships he tried to convince himself didn't exist, doing the grueling housework that servants had done in times when they could afford more than one without complaint. The sweet, compassionate, and fiercely loyal sister who saw only the good in everyone she met and hero-worshipped her brother long before he had done anything to deserve it.

And Angelus had killed them, simply because Liam had loved them. No; that was something she definitely didn't want to witness. There had been dysfunction, heartache, and disappointment aplenty, but underneath it all existed a loving family that faced challenges like any other, even if that was not apparent to everyone in it. Buffy did not want to see the night that family had been destroyed by the demon wearing the face of its wayward member.

Kathy was watching her curiously. "Ye're afraid I'll next show ye somethin' o' the demon 'e became," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Buffy admitted, wondering vaguely if perceptiveness as acute as Kathy's was unique to her or something everyone eventually learned in Heaven.

Kathy shook her head. "While Liam might 'ave a harder time believin' it 'imself, you know as well as I that the demon isn't my brother. Ye've already lived through what that monster is capable of. I've no more desire to see that again than you."

The house around them vanished, along with its inhabitants.

Their new surroundings were a clearing in a dense, black forest on a night darker than any Buffy had experienced. Somehow, she knew they were no longer in Galway, Ireland. There was a bonfire nearby, and its blazing light momentarily distracted her. Tearing her eyes from it, she saw that Angel was a few yards away. He had fallen to his knees and was clutching his head in his hands, and an awful sound was coming from him. It was like the howl of a wounded animal, but she could hear speech in it—most of which was not in English. It wasn't until she discerned the words "what have I done?" amid the disjointed babble that she realized what was happening. They had gone ahead a century and a half to the night he was cursed with his soul. And for the first time, Buffy fully appreciated what a terrible curse it was.

She wanted to run to him, hold him in her arms, and tell him how wonderful he was; that none of what he was remembering was his fault, but she couldn't. She was dead, and this scene was a hundred years old. It had been hard enough when she lived, to see the way his shoulders always hunched under the immense invisible weight of his conscience. But now it was fresh and looked like it was crushing him beneath it, and his pain clawed savagely at her heart. Even so, she didn't look away. She felt that this was something she needed to experience alongside him; sharing his woe as he had shared hers, no matter how much hers had paled in comparison.

"Oh, God. He was all alone like this for so long, wasn't he?" she asked around the hard lump that had risen in her throat.

"No," said Kathy softly. "'E was never as alone as 'e thought."

"You've been with him all along," said Buffy. Perhaps that perceptiveness was easier to learn than she'd thought.

"'E's my brother," said Kathy, who looked like she was on the verge of tears. "I couldn't leave 'im on 'is own. Not like this. 'E always looked out fer me. This was my only chance to return the favor."

For a long time, they watched the anguished form before them in silence. Then a small, painful smile formed on Buffy's face. "Thank you," she said.

* * *

Okay, this chapter is where the idea for the story came from. Buffy seeing Angel at the moment when he first got his soul in 1898. I'm not sure what possessed me to expose her to what I consider one of the saddest, most heart-wrenching moments of either show, but there you are. And this is another chapter title I really love. Latin is awesome.


	5. Beati Pauperes Spiritu

It's been far too long since I updated this story. I would have done it much sooner, but I was stuck because I didn't know how to approach this particular scene. At least, not until three o'clock this morning. So, instead of going back to sleep, I wrote half of the chapter, and then I wrote the rest of it after I woke up again at a more reasonable hour.

* * *

The next scene Kathy showed her was the longest by far. At first, Buffy was surprised to see how desperately Angel sought Darla's acceptance in spite of his curse, but then it struck her how horribly lonely he must have felt, and that Darla was the only familiar thing left in his world—because, of course, he was not aware of Kathy's presence. Buffy wondered how it would have been if she had been alive in this time instead, and found him then. Would he have let her comfort him rather than trying to get comfort from Darla? Would she, Buffy, even have thought to care for him? She supposed she would never know, but she liked to think she would have been able (and willing) to help him, no matter when she lived.

Next, she wondered if his soul had been at peace those hundred and fifty years, like her own was now, but then thought that if that were the case, and he had been thrown back into his mind and body only to have the memories of what that mind and body had done in his absence descend upon him like vultures, his sanity could not have survived. His initial disorientation upon being cursed had not seemed like that of a man torn from his final rest, but of one who is suddenly and inexplicably very far from the place he grew up. No, surely he had not spent those years in Heaven—or did not remember it if he had. Which left her to wonder what happened, then, to the souls of humans who became vampires.

She allowed the scene before her to distract her from her thoughts, and found that it was eventful enough that she probably wouldn't have been able to keep concentrating on something else for much longer anyway. They were in China now, and everything was chaos. She wasn't entirely surprised when Spike and Drusilla showed up, for she remembered what Spike had told her about the Chinese Slayer he killed. It had obviously happened this very night. The queasiness—or whatever the equivalent of queasiness was for a ghost—she felt at being so close to that event was counteracted somewhat by the fact that Angel had just saved a family of trembling missionaries from an attacker and then prevented Darla from going down the alley where they still stood.

What came next shocked and horrified her. Kathy looked as if she understood perfectly. Darla had decided that the price she required of Angel before she accepted him was to kill a helpless baby—the baby of the very missionaries he had tried to save. His moment of truth was mercifully short, and Darla watched with what appeared to be resignation (though she had said it was disgust) as he seized the baby and fled, crashing through glass doors and running out into the street. She did not follow him, and soon she and the room in which she stood melted out of Buffy and Kathy's sight, and then they were on a ship.

Used to these unexpected transitions now, Buffy watched with something like bittersweet amusement as Angel stared at the sleeping orphan babe in his arms. He looked both awed and terrified beneath the soot smearing his face. Occasionally, something darker would twist his features, but each time it was swiftly conquered. Perhaps it was due to the gentle rocking motions of the ship on calm waters, but it was a long time before the baby woke and began to fuss. Angel clearly had no idea what to do, and Buffy supposed, glancing at Kathy, that this was the first time since his sister was that age that he'd found himself in such a position.

His plight did not go unnoticed by his fellow passengers, nearly all of whom were European refugees fleeing the rebellion. Their eyes flickered back and forth from his face to the bundle he held. Buffy could see fear and wariness in their expressions whenever their eyes were on Angel, and she wondered whether the horrors they had been fortunate enough to escape had awakened in them some supernatural sense of danger, or if the people of this time were simply still superstitious enough not to dismiss instinctive warnings as easily as the people of a century later. Buffy felt sorry that Angel could not be given an instinctive benefit of the doubt because of his soul, but at least these people's suspicion would probably make them less likely to get themselves killed by other vampires. Eventually, the baby's cries became loud enough that the passengers' focus left Angel, and a middle-aged woman with a kind but weary face broke through their ranks and cautiously approached him.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but where is the babe's mother?" she asked, just loudly enough to be heard over the noises of the ship.

"Dead," said Angel. His expression was one of bitter regret, and Buffy knew that he blamed himself. She sighed. Did it count for nothing that the child was still alive because of him?

The woman nodded gravely. Motherless children were plainly not a new experience for her. "Come. My nephew and his wife lost their child to malaria only days ago. They are up on the deck. She can nurse your baby."

Angel opened his mouth and seemed about to protest, his arms clutching the crying bundle more tightly, but then his shoulders sagged. He looked past the woman to the patch of sunlight streaming into the ship from the open doorway that led to the deck, and he moved closer and gently passed her the baby. She gave him a small sympathetic smile and hurried off towards that patch of sunlight, and disappeared into it.

Buffy thought that would be the end of it, but when she looked inquiringly at Kathy, the girl shook her head.

"Wait," she said, smiling.

Buffy waited, and half an hour later, the woman returned with the baby, who was once again asleep. Angel gave a small start of surprise when he realized that she was trying to give the baby back to him, clearly under the impression that he was the father. It seemed to be the last thing he had expected, but in the end he held out his arms and took the bundle back. His expression did not look as terrified as it had before when he stared at the peaceful little face within, and Buffy wondered if he had found his much-needed source of comfort after all.

* * *

I always wondered what happened with that baby he rescued, and I'm delighted to have the chance to find out by writing a possible answer to that myself.


	6. Spero Melior

Weeks passed on the ship, and Buffy watched with a tender ache in her heart as a bond formed between Angel and the missionaries' baby. With the exception of what Kathy had shown her from her own childhood, Buffy had never seen him interact with children before, and she couldn't think of any sight more beautiful. Angel wasn't the only one on the boat benefiting from the presence of the tiny new life; Laura Christianson, the grieving young mother, seemed to heal from her own loss a little more each day she nursed the baby girl, and the spirits of her husband and his aunt were lifted as well.

The more time Angel spent making tentative efforts to care for the baby, the less Buffy saw of his fear and reservation, and he was gradually drawn into the Christianson family, though he still managed to remain mostly aloof. The other passengers slowly became less tense around him as well—not that he ever interacted with any of them if he could help it. They seemed to think that anyone who could be so caring and protective of a helpless infant had to be somewhat trustworthy. Even so, whispers often followed him about the ship. Why did he never go up on deck during the day, when it was so stiflingly hot below that a person could barely breathe? Why did he never join the rest of them for meals or prayers or Bible study? Buffy strongly suspected that if it hadn't been for the baby and the little family helping him to take care of her, their misgivings might have led to some form of unpleasant confrontation.

It wasn't long before he and the Christiansons all agreed that the baby's name should be Hope. However, it was only on the eve of the ship's arrival at Gladstone, Australia that the couple surrendered to Angel's quiet insistence that she take their surname rather than his.

One less pleasant thing that Buffy noticed before all the passengers disembarked from the ship (which fortunately made berth at dusk) was that there were considerably fewer rats infesting it when it reached its destination than there had been when it left Shanghai, and she realized with a fresh pang of sympathy why Angel had looked so much more gaunt and sickly throughout the voyage than she had ever seen him when she was alive.

The Christiansons soon adopted Hope as their own. They would have tried to convince Angel that it wasn't their right; he was the one who should keep her, but, to their dismay, he had vanished without a trace. The family spent a year and a half in Gladstone before they received word from cousins in New York about a promising employment opportunity. Unbeknownst to them, however, Angel had not gone. He crouched in the cargo hold of their ship and never revealed his presence to them for the entire journey to Ellis Island. In New York, the family settled down, and Angel watched from the shadows and made sure no harm befell Hope as she grew up to be a strong and spirited young woman.

For Buffy, the years passed in a kind of dreamy haze. Though for many reasons there was little use in feeling jealousy at this point, she watched curiously when Hope reached the age she had been when she met Angel, looking for some sign that the nature of his protectiveness was changing, but none appeared. His attitude toward Hope remained far closer to what it had been with Kathy than anything it had ever been with her. Despite this, Buffy was sure she wouldn't have been surprised if the opposite had been true, for Hope was noticeably similar to herself in appearance as much as in disposition. Her hair was the same darkish golden blonde, her eyes the same greenish amber.

While Angel was apparently immune to Hope's charms beyond deep-seated brotherly affection, others were not, and she had barely reached her nineteenth birthday when a young, reasonably well-to-do Englishman who frequented her parents' shop, where she helped with the bookkeeping, approached Mr. Christianson to ask for her hand in marriage. The young man, one James Evans, was already very well liked by the family, and a particular favorite of Hope's younger brothers, so consent was readily given.

That evening, shortly after James left the Christianson home, a spring in his step and a grin on his face, a pale hand shot out, pulled him unceremoniously into a narrow alley, and pinned him against the brick wall.

"I say, sir!" he cried in anger and alarm. "Unhand me at once! What is the meaning of this?"

Angel's glowering face loomed out of the darkness. "James Evans?" he asked.

"Have we been introduced?" James demanded. "How do you know my name?"

"I make it my business to know everything that concerns Miss Christianson."

James twisted out of Angel's grip. "And what do you mean by that, sir?" he asked fiercely. "What has she to do with someone like you?" His eyes took in Angel's somewhat woebegone condition, his expression disdainful.

The smile twisting Angel's lips did not make him one bit less threatening. "I've been protecting her across three continents ever since the night her birth parents were killed in China, boy." He advanced half a step. "You're about to become the most important person in her life, and I need to know that you deserve her. I like what I've seen so far, but I've been known to make mistakes in my first impressions."

"What proof do you need?" asked James. Though less hostile now, he was still very defiant. Demonic yellow flashed like lightning through Angel's eyes, and James automatically shrank back against the wall.

"Your word'll be good enough," said Angel, his lip curling. "I'll know if you're lying. Do you love her?"

"I-I do," James stammered, his cheeks and ears reddening.

Angel nodded. "Are you going to take her back to England?"

"No," said James. "We'll be heading for California."

"You fought in the war, didn't you?"

James nodded and stood up straighter, suddenly brimming with the confidence and determination he had been lacking for the whole conversation, though his eyes had gained a slightly haunted look.

"Take care of her."

Before James could say anything to this, Angel had vanished. James blinked and resumed his journey home, his gait much jumpier than before.

"He would've made such a good dad," Buffy sighed, glancing up and spotting Angel, shoulders hunched, walking along the roof of one of the buildings that bordered the alley. She didn't see Kathy's amused and rather knowing smile.

The day of their wedding, James and Hope received a beautiful charcoal portrait of themselves. No one knew where it had come from. When they boarded their train for California three weeks later, Angel didn't follow.

* * *

Okay, so, at first, because of what Giles said in "Angel" about how Angel turned up in America about eighty years before (from a late nineties standpoint), I was going to have Hope grow up in Australia, but then I remembered that one scene in "Orpheus" which involved Angel arriving at Ellis Island in 1902. So apparently Giles was wrong, or the writers weren't paying attention, or something, but in any case it meant Hope needed to grow up in the U.S. instead. Oh well. And James didn't really need to be British, I just wanted to write someone saying "I say!", and I can't really imagine American blokes of that time period saying that. *snicker* Oh, and Kathy's little smile there at the end was about Connor, with whom Darla is currently pregnant back in the present.


	7. Sic Mors Est

Sorry for the delay (again). Something that will show up in the next chapter was eluding me, and I didn't figure out what I wanted to do with it until last night, which finally freed me up to keep writing.

* * *

Visiting these parts of Angel's past had eased the regret Buffy felt for lost opportunities in life. As bittersweet as the experience had been, she could not express how much it meant to her, but she was no longer surprised when Kathy looked as if she understood anyway.

As if she had glided from one dreamscape to another, she found herself back in the warm, peaceful, and indescribably beautiful place where her mother and many members of her extended family resided. With a smile, Kathy departed, and Buffy knew that she had returned to watch over her big brother. She decided that she was going to have to figure out how to do that herself one of these days, but for now, the untraceable yet firm knowledge that Angel and everyone else she loved were okay was enough.

The passage of time was surreal, but she was starting to get a small grasp of what eternity felt like. It had been years—no, decades, surely—of this place's time since her return from Angel's past when she received the first visitor. Not long after, there was another. And another. Each time one came, she felt a small stir of recognition, sometimes very strong and sometimes barely noticeable, but she was always unable to place the source of it. They came, they thanked her, and they left.

She received their gratitude warmly even though she didn't understand what prompted them to offer it. If these were the people whose lives she had saved during her time as the Slayer, why were they here among the departed? And why did she have so much trouble recognizing them? As much time as she had spent here, she knew it hadn't been anywhere near as long as on Earth, so she doubted that all of them could have managed to die of natural causes or at the hands of something more sinister since her own death.

It was difficult to muster emotions like irritation or frustration in such a place as this, but the mystery her visitors presented proved to be an effective catalyst, and when her latest guest—a tall, thin man with brown hair and eyes—seemed more content to remain than any of the others had been, she could contain her curiosity no longer.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

He looked surprised. "Why? To thank you. If you thought me insincere—"

"No," she assured him quickly, for he truly seemed worried about it. "But why are you thanking me? You aren't the first. All of you come here, thank me, and leave. I don't understand." She smiled. "I don't think I've been here long enough just _know_ those kinds of things yet."

"You don't know?"

"Should I? What don't I know?" Her frustration was starting to grow. He was already dead, so it obviously couldn't kill him to give her a straight answer.

"You freed me," he said, looking at her with awe and reverence. "And the others, I'm sure."

"Freed you from what?" she asked. _Why_ was he so familiar? She scrutinized each feature of his face separately, but could not find the source of her recognition in any of them. Perhaps it was his voice? Yes, she was sure she had heard that voice before, but it was different now—smoother, warmer.

"I was trapped for a thousand years, give or take a century or two, until you freed me. It was as if I was suspended in dreamless sleep, unable to move on—unable to move at all, but aware in some small way of what the body I had left behind was doing, of the time that passed." His brow furrowed, and he suddenly appeared very troubled. That wasn't an expression Buffy had often seen in heaven, and she couldn't help feeling concerned. She thought over his words, searching for what could cause such an expression, and understanding washed over her.

"You were a vampire," she said.

"Yes."

"And the others?"

"I can't be certain without meeting them myself, but if they came here to thank you, then it seems likely."

Buffy let that sink in for a moment. She felt her pride in her calling as Slayer grow, and wondered if she would have fought harder if she had known she was freeing souls as well as destroying demons. "Why did they leave before I could ask them? I would have understood why they were thanking me. It would have meant more to me, and probably to them too."

"Perhaps they feared your judgment if they stayed," he said thoughtfully. "After all, though we may not have understood what was happening, each of us made that choice, in the end, to drink. To surrender to the demon."

Buffy frowned. "But you're still here. Everyone here made mistakes or chose wrong sometimes. I did."

"That means a lot, coming from you."

Something occurred to Buffy that made sorrow well up inside her. Though many freed souls had come to find her so far, Ford had never been one of them. She was sure she would have known him immediately, and that the reason she didn't quite recognize any of the others was that she hadn't known them before they became vampires—those souls had been strangers to her.

But not Ford's. He had been her friend for half her life. He had betrayed her, plotted to have her and all those people killed in return for being sired. Was he only afraid of her judgment like the others who had come and hastily departed again? Or was he incapable of coming in the first place because he was somewhere _else_? She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Why didn't you leave quickly like the others?" she asked, hoping it would distract her from her previous train of thought.

He didn't answer immediately. Perhaps he wasn't entirely sure of the reason himself. "Considering how long I was trapped, a brief show of gratitude hardly seemed fair repayment for being released." He chuckled. "Then again, I waited this long to thank you."

"I don't mind," she said. "I'm glad I was able to help you."

They smiled at each other. Buffy's sense of being complete had intensified with the knowledge he had given her, and he looked as though she had lifted a burden from his shoulders. But now he did seem ready to depart.

"Wait," said Buffy before he could go. "What's your name?"

"Joseph," he said. He started to walk away, but then turned back. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry my demon killed you. I'm grateful that it wasn't the death that held."


	8. Per Astra Ad Aspera

Warning: angst ahead. But such is season six, right? By the way, in the previous chapter I goofed slightly with the Master's human name, which is actually Heinrich Joseph Nest. I had the first and middle names mixed up, hence his introducing himself as Joseph. Then again, my dad goes by his middle name, and for all we know, Mr. Nest did too.

* * *

Buffy didn't know how she could keep doing this. She knew they brought her back because they thought they were saving her, but she couldn't help resenting them for not knowing better. She had known they were okay the whole time she was in heaven, so why couldn't it have worked in reverse? Or had they found it so difficult to let her go that they ignored any inklings they'd had of the truth?

She suddenly remembered how she had felt when Dawn had tried to bring back their mother. Her resentment towards her friends might have caved beneath her understanding of their feelings had it not been for the fact that they'd had four whole months to reject their plan and learn to live with their grief. Her own moment of weakness had come and gone, all within two days of her mother's funeral.

Telling Spike about it hadn't helped either, because seeing him was just a reminder that there was another trapped soul somewhere, waiting to be freed. Her rationalizations that he was harmless and even helped sometimes didn't do anything for that soul. She felt ashamed of her weakness, and she hated that shame as much as she hated the rest of the negative feelings that seemed to have nested within her, stubbornly refusing to be dislodged. She had been safe from all of this for so long, but now she was here, where things could be cold and bitter and harsh.

Before she could stop herself, she was flashing back to the night of her return—as if her nightmares didn't do that often enough. She had been with her mother, happy and peaceful, and then before she knew what was happening, the soft warmth and light around her was snuffed out, and she was plunged into cold, pressing darkness. Terror, confusion, and panic had strangled her, doubly so because of the unfamiliarity created by their long absence, and her frantically pounding heart only added to the chaotic emotional din.

Instinct took over when her mind was too overcome to act with everything so horribly wrong. She felt the walls that were far too close, then frantically tore at the fabric-lined surface directly above her. Pain lanced through her fingers, but she didn't stop. Then the dirt began pouring in, and she felt like she was going to drown in it. The only option was to go up before the earth could swallow her whole, and she fought her way through as if the suffocating mass around her was alive until, finally, she broke free. Her relief had been minimal, and her own tombstone had been the first thing she saw.

By the next day, her hands had healed, but she was claustrophobic now, and the smell of dirt still made her feel like she was suffocating. Sometimes she wondered where she would be now if she had let her grave keep her that night. Fear of the answer more than anything else was what kept her from finding out.

Her thoughts continued in this fashion as she waded through the flooded basement, feet and calves encased in an old pair of rubber boots, trying to ascertain how much damage had been done. The others were upstairs doing a similar job with the wreckage she and the demon had made of the living room during their fight. She let out a groan of frustration. Why did she have to come back to this? Why was so much more going wrong than it usually did? She didn't need the extra help to appreciate what she'd been taken from.

With the exception of a box of tools and some canned food, everything that was on bottom shelves or sitting on the floor was pretty much ruined. Buffy felt like she was failing to take care of the home her mother had left her, which sent her thoughts spiraling ever more miserably downward. It wasn't long before they found their way back to resentment. Why would they think she had gone to hell in the first place? They had probably used the time she had sent Angel there as an example, but that didn't fit. He hadn't even been dead when he went there, body and all. By contrast, jumping into the portal hadn't sent her anywhere. Her lifeless body had remained on Earth while her soul moved on, just like everyone else who died. If she had fallen out somewhere else, maybe their actions would have made more sense based on past experience, but she'd still been here for them to bury. She was sure Giles would have known better. The fact that they hadn't told him what they were planning to do convinced her of it, and made her think all the worse of them.

It was an enormous relief that Giles hadn't been part of it. It meant there was someone she could simply be happy to see in person again without the barrier of life and death to separate them. It was the same with Dawn, but tainted, because the deepest part of her shame came from the small particle of resentment she felt towards the resurrected responsibility of being her sister's legal guardian.

The spray from the pipes had damaged a number of things sitting on higher shelves, but thankfully nothing that seemed particularly valuable. Behind a miraculously dry box of old clothing that had somehow never made it to Goodwill, she found a large, flat, rectangular package wrapped in thick brown paper. Frowning, she pulled it down from the shelf. From the way it felt and the tapering at the edges, she could tell it contained a picture frame. Having had quite enough of her sodden basement for the day, she tucked the package under her arm and went back upstairs, kicked off the boots at the top step, then continued up until she reached her bedroom, walking quickly and quietly so as to avoid drawing the attention of anyone in the living room.

After closing the door behind her, she sat cross-legged on her bed, then set the package down in front of her, untied the string, and pulled off the brown paper. A gasp of surprise escaped her. Beneath a sheet of glass and encased in an elegant but simple frame was a beautiful charcoal drawing that brought a flood of memories from heaven sharply and clearly into her mind, suddenly free of the dreamlike haze that was beginning to cloud the rest.

The man and woman depicted were dressed in early '20s-style wedding clothes. The bride's hands were clasped behind the groom's neck while his rested at her waist, and they were looking adoringly into each other's eyes. Buffy traced the lines of the drawing with her fingers, drinking in every detail, her mind whirling with the implications of this forgotten heirloom, because it was only now that she realized how familiar those faces were. She had seen them time and time again as a child, looking back at her from the pages of old family photo albums. Perhaps she hadn't made the connection before because they had usually been years older in the photos than they were in the drawing.

Buffy's sense of amazement didn't fade, and she looked and looked, hypnotized by the lifelike figures of the happy couple. She was hardly an art critic, but it seemed to her that the only thing particularly odd about the picture was the lighting. The artist had clearly intended to place his subjects in a glow of bright, cheerful sunlight, but had forgotten exactly how that was supposed to look. This didn't surprise her. Then again, she might simply have imagined it because of what she already knew.

Her tracing fingers found the scripted _A_ in the bottom right corner and lingered there. She didn't need to dig a certain slightly damaged and dirt-encrusted book of sonnets out of the trunk in her closet to verify the handwriting. For one small moment, the feelings of peace and comfort she had lost glowed within her. But then she heard Willow calling her name from downstairs, and she remembered that life had to go on.

* * *

As this was set shortly before the end of "Flooded", I think we all know what's next. Also, my erratic updating patterns for this fic in the past may have made the drawing's first appearance fade from some of your memories. Sorry about that. It's in chapter six if you want to find it again.


	9. Quos Amor Verus Tenuit Tenebit

Last and very obviously longest chapter! And boy was it a beast to write. Oh, and I plan to include an appendix soon to clear up the chapter title meanings for those of you who are unfamiliar with Latin. This one's my favorite, by the way.

* * *

Buffy picked up the phone, unable to imagine who was calling—unless it was the plumber wanting to tell her that there was a problem with her bill. Namely, that it was too small. "Hello?" she said apprehensively. There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. Her grip tightened on the receiver and all worry about plumbing bills vanished from her mind.

"Buffy." The word came out in a choked whisper, but she had already identified the speaker at that first gasp.

"Angel." The reply was familiar and automatic, but she felt paralyzed, and thought she might collapse where she stood. Her heart was suddenly pounding as if she'd just finished a particularly difficult slay.

"Willow called last night. It was late. She said you were already asleep." In his obvious (and failed) attempt to keep emotion out of his voice, he sounded adorably awkward. "I-I didn't want to bother you."

"You wouldn't have." She'd had the nightmares again last night. His voice would have been a welcome alternative to clawing her way out of her grave for the hundredth time.

"Can I…I need to see you," he said—before he could stop himself, by the sound of it.

She readily agreed, for innumerable reasons—the most trivial of which being that the handset had already made one ominous cracking sound under her grip so far; if they continued their conversation this way, it would be in pieces soon, and she didn't feel like adding the phone to the already extensive list of things that needed replacing. "Where?" she asked.

"The spot on the coast—you remember?"

"Yeah." It was where they had gone the day after her mother's funeral, when she wasn't ready to part with him yet after a night in his arms at the cemetery. It had been so cloudy there that day that he'd been able to stay outside. She was grateful he hadn't suggested they meet in Sunnydale this time. She cleared her throat, which had grown painfully tight over the past few seconds. "When?"

"After sunset. I'll be there as soon as I can."

†

That phone conversation played over and over in Buffy's head as she drove down the highway in the black Jeep that had once been her mom's. She knew she would arrive hours before Angel, but she didn't care. She wouldn't have been able to stand sitting in that house through the intervening time, cataloging bills and contemplating her flooded basement. Besides, she still didn't have a driver's license, so it would probably be safer if at least half of the round trip were undertaken during the day.

†

Angel hadn't been exaggerating when he said he would be there as soon as he could; the gas pedal was pressed completely flat to the GTX's floor for almost the entire journey. In fact, superhuman senses and reflexes were most likely the only things preventing him from suffering a horrible wreck en route. A small part of him knew this urgency wasn't rational. He had already heard her voice. He knew she was alive. And yet he couldn't slow down. It was almost as if the sooner he got to her now, the less it would matter that he hadn't been there before. Before she awoke alone, six feet under. Before she died.

As fast as he was going, the drive still felt like the nightmare where no matter how fast you run, you can never escape your slow-moving pursuer. Thankfully, this was only the effect of a cruel imagination, and he did, finally, turn off the Pacific Coast Highway to arrive at a quietly picturesque stretch of beach at the base of a cliff. He immediately spotted the black Jeep that Buffy's mother used to drive and pulled up beside it.

Suddenly, despite the concrete evidence of the Jeep, Angel's urgency was replaced by fear that this would, in fact, prove to be nothing more than a dream. God only knew, it was a dream he'd had many times in the past five months. He walked slowly towards the cluster of boulders by the shore without looking at them until he was ten yards away. And there she was, sitting on the one closest to the water, her back to him. He noticed that her hair was a deeper honey-blonde than when he had last seen her, and that it had more of a curl to it.

As though she could feel his gaze upon her, she turned around. What he saw was painful—ten times more painful than hearing the bleakness in her voice over the phone. She still looked like a twenty-year-old, but her eyes now betrayed a soul that was much closer to his own in years, as well as a vulnerability that he doubted she had let anyone else see.

Neither of them quite knew how it happened or where the distance between them went, but the next moment, they were locked in a hug that would have broken the ribs of any normal human.

"You're alive," he said.

Buffy said nothing; what she wanted to say didn't have words in this world. Then again, the embrace seemed to be all that was needed. It was amazing how someone with no body heat could make her feel closer to being as warm and safe as she had been in heaven than anything else had since she came back. Closer than the hugs from Dawn and Giles, even, and for the moment she didn't feel empty or lost. What was more, unlike Giles, Angel didn't protest at the force of her hug. Instead, it was a force he matched. She was glad; she was sick of people treating her like she would either break or explode if too much pressure was applied. The fact that his hug was so tight that it was slightly painful helped; it made it more real.

It was the same for Angel. Nothing less could have removed the last of his fears that she would vanish and he would be alone. Her death had been devastating. For months, whether he was in Tibet or Los Angeles, it had been as if someone had ripped out his insides and left him empty and bleeding. He had only recently been able to pick up the pieces and soldier on, knowing that was what she'd have wanted. And now she was back. She was in his arms, warm, her heartbeat sounding beautifully in his ears. He took long unneeded breaths to savor the smell of her hair while he attempted to regain his equilibrium. "How?" he asked eventually.

A bitter taste filled Buffy's mouth, and her throat ached. "They brought me back. Willow, Xander, Tara, and Anya. They found a spell."

"Why would they do that?" Angel demanded. It was all he could do to keep his demon from surfacing.

Buffy pulled back and looked at him, surprised at his tone. It matched the looks Giles had been giving Willow ever since he got back when he thought nobody was watching.

"I mean, you—" Angel swallowed and tried again. "You were happy…where you were, weren't you?"

Buffy's eyes widened, and then she looked down. It was as if he just knew, the same way Kathy had just known things—the way she had started to, before she was ripped out of heaven. It was harder to do that here, where people lied and hid their real intentions. For one brief moment, she considered lying to him; she recognized that he was offering her the chance to do so. But she found that she couldn't. She was too grateful that he understood without her having to explain, and that he hadn't tried to fool himself into believing something easier. She couldn't give that up when she had been longing so much for someone to understand, so she gave in.

"Yes," she said.

"Then why?"

She withdrew from his arms and turned away, the bitter feelings that had become so familiar lately rising up within her. "If this is the part where I'm supposed to play devil's advocate and make excuses for them, I think I'll pass. I'm tired of wearing the brave face. Trying to act grateful." Something she'd kept locked within her ever since she heard his voice that morning burst out before she could stop it. "If you'd known what they were going to do—"

"I would have stopped them," he said simply.

Her eyes snapped back to his. "They thought I was in hell," she said in spite of herself. It seemed that defending them had become a kneejerk reaction.

"But you weren't, and they should have known better, or—or tried to find out for sure somehow instead of just—" Angel stopped speaking with a frustrated sigh that was almost a growl. How could _anyone_ have thought hell was where she ended up, let alone her friends who knew her so well? It wasn't as if she was a damned creature like him. What justification could they possibly have for such a blasphemous assumption?

It was a few more seconds before he realized that he'd been pacing. He stopped and looked towards her, though his gaze didn't quite reach her face, and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. Finally, he mastered himself and his eyes locked with hers again. "If you'd been anywhere else, nothing could have stopped me from getting you out."

Buffy saw the shadow of his own time in hell behind his eyes, and knew that he still believed that he was doomed to end up there. If only he knew what she did, what she had learned from Joseph. Then again, he still fought in spite of that belief, so perhaps he was a greater champion for it.

"If I'd known what they were doing," he said, "I wouldn't have let them do it, but…." He moved closer. "It's done, and I can't pretend I'm not happy you're alive. I thought I'd never see you again, and I never got to say goodbye." He hung his head in shame. "I didn't save you."

"No," said Buffy, reaching up to touch his cheek. "You were a world away, saving someone else. You try to go all guilt trip-y on me about that, I'm gonna have to hurt you. Besides, we don't say goodbye." She chuckled, thinking of their standard greeting. "Or hello, for that matter."

Angel smiled in agreement, but then his expression became puzzled, and he covered her hand with his own.

"What?" she asked.

"The funeral," he said distractedly, his eyes unfocused. Buffy's smile became softer as she waited. Gradually, it seemed, he returned to the present. "You were there. It was almost as if I could reach out, and you'd be right beside me."

"I was," she said.

Unexpectedly, anger rose in him again. "But they were there too! They must have felt something! How could they still bring you back after that?" He was getting to the point where the prospect of torturing her friends was almost more appealing than it had been when he had no soul. His suspicion that she wouldn't mind as much as usual did not help.

Buffy shrugged and let her hand drop back to her side. "I don't know. Xander smiled and Tara looked right at me, but I guess they forgot. I wasn't trying very hard to make contact. Maybe I should have." Her hand found its way into his, and together they walked over to the smooth boulder where she had been sitting and sank onto it side-by-side.

For a few minutes, they silently watched the progress of the waves along the moonlit shore, a gentle breeze stirring the crisp sea air around them. This was such a secluded, peaceful place, and Buffy once again reflected on her gratitude that he had wanted to meet here rather than in the bustle of either city.

"So, how've you been?" she asked halfheartedly.

Angel shrugged, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "Oh, you know. Solving cases, fighting demons, getting body-swapped with some old geezer. The usual."

Buffy smiled without realizing it and peered at him with her eyebrows raised. "Was body-swapping as fun for you as it was for me?" she asked sardonically.

"Well, for a while there, my heart was beating, and I got to experience old age."

Buffy caught the slight wistfulness in his tone and felt a rush of affection and sympathy. She also couldn't help being amused by the thought that they were probably some of the only people in the world who would be happy to be elderly. For him, it would be part of being human, and for her, it would mean surviving long enough to get there. Then again, she thought, gloom settling over her again, maybe that wasn't so appealing anymore. She looked out at the ocean again in an attempt to not let this turn of mood show, and forced herself to maintain her outer amusement. "So I guess it _was_ fun for you. Lucky."

"Well, then I had a heart attack. That kinda took the shine off," he said lightly, but he hadn't been fooled. "How about you?" he asked seriously.

"I met Kathy," she said, though she knew Angel hadn't been referring to her time in heaven. He turned to look at her so rapidly that he probably would have wrenched something if he'd been human. Buffy pretended not to notice. She kept speaking, even though she knew it would cause him pain to hear what she was saying. "She looks like you. She took me to your past. The day she was born, you were crying because you were afraid she would die like your other brothers and sisters. You used to ride out to the coast with her and draw in the sand and talk about your dreams. Whenever she got hurt, you were terrified and blamed yourself for not taking care of her. She was the only one you would listen to after you fought with your father. She cleaned your wounds whenever you came home from a brawl, and she hated it, but she loved you so much." Buffy turned to look him squarely in the face, and was unsurprised to find it streaked with tears. "She still does."

Angel was having difficulty processing what she was saying, even though the memories of everything she mentioned had flashed across his mind as she said them. His baby sister. How dearly he had loved her. He still remembered her blood—some of the first he had tasted. The memory was perhaps more painful than any other. Was it possible? Could she still love him in spite of what he had done? And the memories she had shown Buffy. It had been a long time since he had allowed himself to dwell on such innocent times.

While Angel was lost in these thoughts, something stopped Buffy from telling him that Kathy had been watching over him ever since his soul was restored. She knew somehow that it was not her place to reveal such information to beings still earthbound. This made her feel like a fallen angel, an idea that would have made her chuckle if it hadn't been so closely tied to her deepest fear. What if heaven couldn't tell the difference between the angel that had fallen and the angel that had been torn away against her will? And even if it could, what if Willow's spell had left her so tainted that she couldn't go back anyway? She didn't need Giles's understanding of magic to know that the spell had been a gross violation of the laws of nature, and she couldn't believe that there would be no lasting consequences.

Buffy realized too late that she hadn't averted her gaze from Angel's face as she entertained these thoughts, nor had she bothered to keep the emotion out of her own features. It was strange; with her friends, that emotion simply wasn't there. Only echoes of it. She turned away from him.

"You saved that baby from Darla," she continued firmly, determined to move them away from that forbidden subject, because she didn't know how she'd be able to hold herself together if she gave him the chance to express sympathy or reassurance about something that he couldn't possibly know for sure. "You named her Hope because that's what she was to you, and you kept protecting her until she married James and left New York." Buffy paused there and turned back to look at him, feeling safe enough to meet his eyes again. Fresh tears had coursed down his face, and he looked overwhelmed by the emotion her words had unleashed on him. "Did you ever see her again?" she asked.

He shook his head, then swallowed and looked down, but not before she had seen regret in his eyes. Angel had often wondered what became of Hope after she began her life with James, but he had doubted his ability to stay away if he went to see for himself. She had been as dear to him as a sister, except that he hadn't failed her as he had failed Kathy.

"The drawing you gave them as a wedding present," said Buffy, and her heart beat a little faster. "I found it."

Angel's head jerked back up. "What?"

"It was in the basement, with the stuff that never really got unpacked after the move to Sunnydale. I guess Mom never thought it went with the décor in L.A. either. Her parents died when I was little, so she must have had it for a long time."

"Hope—"

"Was my great-grandmother? Yeah. So, I guess, on behalf of the existence of the last three generations of my family…thank you, for everything you did for her."

Angel said nothing for several minutes, but she seemed content to sit in silence, her fingers intertwined with his. He was good with guilt and self-blame. Recognizing and taking credit for positive consequences of his own actions was harder. These particular consequences being what—_who!_—they were, he was at a complete loss to take it in.

"You remind me of her," he said finally, deciding to save the weightier implications for future contemplation. "I'm surprised I didn't notice before. Same eyes. Same heart. Same fire. That was what I saw that day at Hemery. I should have realized where I'd seen it before."

"Maybe you did, on some level. Maybe that's why you thought I'd be happiest with a normal life. She was. That was why you left her, too, wasn't it?"

"She never knew I was there."

"Was that how it was supposed to go with me?"

"It should have been easy. With Hope, I stayed out of sight for nineteen years, so it wasn't like I didn't have experience protecting from afar. But I didn't even make it one year with you."

"So, does that mean you were _trying_ to get kicked to the ground when you followed me into that alley?"

Angel smirked. "Maybe."

They fell silent again, and Buffy shifted guiltily. "I'm sorry I didn't call you myself. It's been weeks, and I should've—" She broke off. "You said it was Willow who called, right?"

"Yeah."

"She wants me to be grateful for what she did. Have someone to tell her she's amazing for pulling off a spell like that. 'Thanks Wil! I'm so _happy_ to be here! Demons to fight all the time, criminally awful plumbing, and so many bills that I could drown in them are _so_ much more fun than all that "better place" stuff. Oh! And leaving me to dig myself out of my grave? Can't thank you enough for that. It was such an _awesome_ experience.'" Suddenly realizing how much bitterness had escaped her, she looked down, ashamed of herself.

Angel tightened his grip on her hand, but didn't speak. Even two and a half centuries later, he was still uncomfortable with enclosed spaces. But at least he hadn't needed to breathe, so he'd been free to take his time getting out. He couldn't imagine how much worse it must have been for Buffy. Any weaker person would probably still be severely traumatized by the experience, assuming they would even have survived it.

"Anyway," she said, "I think she thought if I saw you again, it would…." She glanced briefly at him, then down at their interlocked fingers. "Well. It was a nice theory, but…I guess she forgot the part where this can't last."

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, stroking her cheek with his free hand and leaning closer. "You know I wish it could as much as you do."

Buffy became very aware of the fact that he was only inches away, and in that instant, whatever had been platonic about this rendez-vous evaporated. She wasn't sure which one of them moved first, but a second later, they were kissing fiercely.

Kisses from Angel had never been forgettable, but it seemed that she _had_ forgotten just how incredible they could be. She was back in heaven, yet alive—so wonderfully alive with her heart thumping wildly and heat flooding through her veins, and there was nothing detached or forced or hollow about it.

Angel, meanwhile, was back to the only heaven he knew—the one he was convinced was the only heaven he ever _would_ know, and the one he had thought was gone from him forever. And now he was in danger of getting lost in it. Right now, he didn't care, and he pulled her closer. Overwhelmed as she was with feelings that had been absent ever since she came back to life, Buffy was more than happy to oblige, and was soon in his lap. His hands roamed her back while hers explored his hair and neck before flying to the buttons on his shirt.

She had the front of his shirt completely open and was beginning to leave a trail of blazing kisses down his throat towards his chest before Angel came to his senses. "Stop," he panted, more because he was overwhelmed than because he was actually out of breath. "We…we have to stop."

"Why?" she asked, running her hands over his bare torso and trying to resume kissing him.

He caught her by the wrists and leaned back, anguished. "You know why."

"How do you know it would be perfect happiness this time?" she pleaded, seizing handfuls of his shirt.

"You can't know that it wouldn't, and I won't take that chance."

For the first time since he arrived—since she came back, in fact, Buffy felt tears streak her face. She knew she couldn't ask him to risk his soul again, but she wanted him so badly, and then, if it brought Angelus back, maybe he would kill her and it would finally be over. She shuddered at the thought, no matter how much part of her wanted it. It had happened that way a dream once. She doubted whether she would still consider it a nightmare if she had it again. At the moment, the knowledge of how much it would break Angel if it came true was a stronger deterrent than her own will to live.

Angel could tell that her struggle had ended; she let go of his shirt and her hands dropped to her sides in defeat. Without hesitation, he pulled her back into his arms and cradled her against his chest, where she began to sob uncontrollably. "I love you," he said.

"I love you too," she replied, her voice choked. "So why does it have to be so hard?"

He closed his eyes. "I don't know." He eased her far enough back so that he could look into her face. "But we have to be strong, remember? It's hard, painful, and every day." He smiled and wiped her tears away. "It's what we have to do."

She managed to smile back, if tremulously, and climbed down. The sand felt pleasantly cool on her bare feet; she'd left her shoes in the Jeep. Angel stood up as well. After swallowing hard, Buffy managed to help him button his shirt back up. He offered his hand. She took it, and he led her back to their vehicles. To her intense relief, he opened the door of his own car for her, and once he had followed her in, he pulled her back against his chest and simply held her. She would have stayed there forever, but they both knew that wasn't possible. After spending quite possibly hours this way, they exchanged a glance and resignedly got out of the car.

He walked her to the door of her Jeep. Buffy put her keys in the door and made to open it, but Angel caught her by the arm. "If you need anything, just call." He was not going to fail to save her again.

"Thank you," she said.

He bent down and kissed her with aching tenderness. She leaned against him for a moment afterward, and then they parted.

* * *

And thus I have written the obligatory offscreen meeting fic no Buffy/Angel writer seems able to resist forever. Hopefully I retained some originality in my attempt. Anyway, this concludes "Finis Vitae", and since "Worlds Apart" is also done, I am now free to focus on the long-neglected "Season 9" (and also "The Slayer and His Vampire", though that one won't be as big a priority, since I'm closer to finishing the other).


	10. Appendix

Quid Quid Latine Dictum Sit Altum Viditur

* * *

Appendix! Here you will find the translations of the Latin story and chapter titles (including this one), and the reasons behind my choices.

* * *

Finis Vitae Sed Non Amoris: The End of Life but Not of Love

Pretty self-explanatory.

* * *

I. In Memoriam: In Memory Of

This chapter featured Buffy's funeral. Go figure.

* * *

II. Dum Vita Est, Spes Est: Where There Is Life, There Is Hope

This chapter focused on Liam as a child, with his innocence, his dreams, and his love for his sister. Also, Buffy is dead. So where's the hope?

* * *

III. Stipendium Peccati Mors Est: The Wage of Sin Is Death

This chapter focused on Liam's downfall into self-destructive habits, which would ultimately put him in a position to be turned by Darla.

* * *

IV. Dum Spiro, Spero: While I Breathe, I Hope

None of the characters in this chapter are breathing.

* * *

V. Beati Pauperes Spiritu: Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Angel, fresh from his days of ineffectively groveling at Darla's feet and while he's still at one of the lower points of his existence, does his first major active good deed (of which canon made us aware, anyway) by rescuing the missionaries' baby from Darla.

* * *

VI. Spero Melior: I Hope for Better Things

Hope is the name Angel gives the baby.

* * *

VII. Sic Mors Est: Such Is Death

*Play on "Sic Vita Est" (Such Is Life).

Back to Buffy hanging out in heaven, plus some new insight into vampires and souls.

* * *

VIII. Per Astra Ad Aspera: Through the Stars to the Hardships

*Reversal of "Per Aspera Ad Astra" (Through the Hardships to the Stars).

Buffy just got yanked out of heaven and now life is throwing all kinds of crap at her.

* * *

IX. Quos Amor Verus Tenuit Tenebit: Those Whom True Love Has Held, It Will Go On Holding

Buffy and Angel. Just because they can't be together doesn't mean they're no longer in love.

* * *

X. Quid Quid Latine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur: Anything Said in Latin Sounds Profound

My sense of whimsy shall no longer be repressed! However, it was too long to fit in the chapter title drop menu. Alas.


End file.
